Since last week, I have been participate in Adventure Game Jam 2023 that’s hosted on Itch.io. I got invited by the programmer from the previous Seattle Indies Slow Jam, Currying Flavor.
During the first week, we couldn’t figure out what we want to make, since adventure game is such a broad genre. There were so many ideas, but no decision were made. During brainstorming session, the team came up with an idea of using flip book mechanics where the player can control how many layers they can show a time.
Based off this mechanic, I try to pitch my version using a storyboard / paper prototype, which is as follow:
Although this pitch did not get selected, one of the programmer found a way to do auto-color script based on z depth. I wanted to do a paper card art style this time, and mainly doing 2D art, since it is faster to make compared to 3D for a short game jam session.
After a while, we decided to make the game where it takes place inside different train cars. Each car represent a certain surreal environment. Unlike the previous game jams where I jumped in right away to make production assets, this time I take my time to come up with some thumbnail concept art for each of the train.
The first train design was a train car that flies in the sky.
The second train design was an underwater dining train. I thought of a combination of sushi bar and San Francisco’s street car, and came up with these thumbnails. I figured if the sushi chef ran out of ingredient, he or she can just grab some fish from outside the train.
The third train we thought of was a resting/sleeper train, so I designed cozy library car that float in space.
I let the team to pick their favorite designs before making production assets from those. I will post these production assets on the next post.
Thank you for reading.
